By Mike Smith

Surprises abound at the Division 3 State Championships in Tilton on Saturday at Winnisquam High School. Looking to sneak the meet in around the potential thunder and lightning, records and athletes were on high alert. Scoring did not follow form and two teams not slated to be the top performers rose to the challenge and found ways to get it done. Campbellboys won on some diversified point scoring while the girls of White Mountains scored some big ticket points in the hurdles, high jump, and discus.

While the results speak for themselves, I’m going to highlight those events that kept the spectators on the edge of their seats or simply commanded attention due to the magnitude of the performances.

Two events stand out as the division records were broken. First up and certainly expected was Joey Fodorof Berlin’s event record in javelin. Having already surpassed the record of Andrew Owens of Sanborn during the season, Fodor uncorked a throw of 187-6 to set the D3 record.

The other was the Raymond’s Anna Harmon attempt at the 800 meter record held by Alton’s Marissa Peterson set in 2000 of 2:20.94. Harmon set right to work and blasted 2:17.02, which would have won D1’s the night before. Should be interesting to see what happens next week at MOCs.

The girls 4×800 record survived a scare by Portsmouth Christian. PCA was close to the record last week at the Wilderness Championships, but the heat and humidity that enveloped the beginning of the D3 meet derailed the attempt, having the girls run 10:00.09 to fall just a touch short of Hopkinton’s 9:59.17 set in 2010.

Mascenic boys ended up winning the 4×800 by eight seconds but the race wasn’t as close as it might sound on paper. The Vikings opened an early gap during leg one that would never be challenged. Anchor DJ Turner shut it down with 100 to go and could have possibly challenged the D3 record of 8:18.08 by Bow in 2013. Will they go for it next week?

Belmont’s Hunter Dupuis got things going with two individuals wins in the 100 and 200, along with the winning anchor leg in the 4×100. He also had a killer third leg in the 4×400 where Belmont came up just short of winning as InterLakes Eli Dupigny was able to get around Zach Ennis and pull off the win.

On the girls side of the short sprints, the last name was the same but twin sisters Abby Drew and Haylie Drewwon those event respectively. Also as expected, Abby won long jump and Haylie grabbed some points in pole vault behind teammate and pole vault champ Taylor Banish. The Conant Orioles actually led the meet in team scoring at one point with only four athletes (two sets of twins!) entered in the meet.

As predicted, the one to watch in the hurdles on the men’s side was PCA’s Fiston Kapongo. While he might not score style points over the hurdles, he certainly piled up 20 points in the 100 and 300 hurdles, winning both in commanding style as he’s done all season long. White Mountains Taima Ronish won the 100 hurdles and Campbell’s Tori Allen won the 300 hurdles.

Kearsarge’s Mya Dube had the day she was looking for, winning the 1600 and doubling back for the 3200 meter battle with PCA’s Liza Corso, prevailing 11:22.85 to 11:24.66. Moultonborough’s Tyler McLaughlinwas looking to complete the same double, leading the 1600 for the majority of the race only to be kicked down by Campbell’s Jeffrey Allen. He was able to come back and dominate the 3200 meter field, winning by 4 seconds in 10:10 over a hard charging Simon Doneskiof Hopkinton. Allen was also looking to come back in the 800 but found himself in a loaded field that also had the top seed and one of the best middle distance runners in InterLakes Ian Daly. Daly controlled the field for the first lap, then pulled away making it look easy for the win in 1:59.98.

As anticipated, the Gilfordgirls dominated the 4×100 and 4×400 meter relays. Belmont boys easily dispatched the other contenders in the 4×100 meter relay, but as we mentioned before were not able to handle InterLakesin the 4×400.

In the high jump, Tori Allen and Merceidiz Diaz scored 18 points to go towards the Campbell’s cause while Hopkinton’s Kevin McGrath cleared 6-6 to win boy’s high jump over White Mountains Jack Parker. McGrath also won long jump 20-10 while Parker won pole vault. Triple jump was won by the InterLake’s duo of Emma Wheeler and Owen Billin.

Winnisquam’s Gabby Isabelle won a close one in shot put, 33-8.25 to Newfound’s Oceanne Skoog’s throw of 33-8. Newport’s Peter Thibault won the event for the men. White Mountain’s Grace Gensamerand Sadie Bushway scored 18 points towards their championship push in the discus and Thibault beat all challengers as well. As mentioned before Berlin’s Fodor crushed the previous javelin record for the win while Jasmine Peterson of Newfound stepped up to win the girls javelin.

Both of my pre-meet predictions for team championships turned out to be wrong; however, I had mentioned that the teams that won should be watched. The Lady Spartans of White Mountains did what they do so often and upset the form charts, winning the meet with 59 points to Gilford’s 50. Getting big points in discus and 100 hurdles helped but White Mountain picked up points here and there throughout the meet.

The Campbell boys on the other hand only scored a win in one event, Jeffrey Allen’s 1600 meter win. The Cougars however got lots of point across the disciplines which added up to 71 points in total, to beat InterLakes by seven.

Note: We will be uploading pics and interviews soon. Keep checking the Divisional Meet Hub. Thank you for your patience as we sent separate crews to each of the 3 Divisional Meets Of further note, allow us to explain why D3 was not livestreamed. If there is no hard line ethernet connection, the result is quite grainy and not of the quality that would be satisfactory for multiple viewings over the years. We are hoping all division meets next year have hard line connections at the track or tracks where the Divisional meets take place. The D3 meet video will be posted by Tuesday. Thank you for your patience.

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There was lots of excitement at D3s this year. Not mentioning the lightning that interrupted the meet, two records went down and a lot of close battles as well including the last leg of the boys 4x400s. Exactly what track and field is all about.